In the first of what we hope to be a series of articles written by contributing columnists, here is our friend Rocky’s hilarious journal of her participation in the LA Marathon last month!
Well, for those of you who wondered if “Rocky’s Marathon Days were over” (seeing as how I haven’t sent out any updates lately-the last one being in 2002) don’t fret….your good ‘ol buddy Rocky continues to lose more brain cells (apparently at an astonishingly fast rate) over these past couple of years and continues to sign up for these stupid things!
I might add that I ran one 1/2 marathon since my last full marathon in 2002, and regret not telling you all about it. Didn’t seem to have the energy at the time, although it would have made for a funny story. But in a nut shell? Rocky and her cousin Minnie (along with 2 other older women) accidently run off course and get lost around mile 10 or so before being re-diverted back onto the right course by the “poop out van.” “Hey!! Are you guys running in the 1/2 marathon? If so…you’re going the wrong way!” Ay ya yay! After all that drama, we inevitably finished LAST (as my mother Carmen likes to tell people)…but all in all it was a satisfying feeling for my cousin Minnie and I. Something we’ve always talked about doing. Now I’m trying to get her to run a FULL marathon with me. She must have taken after the smarter side of the family cuz so far she keeps turning me down!
However, my cousin Al on the hand (from the dumber side of the family tree-ok, i gotta stop blaming my poor cousin…although he TOO admits to his stupidity) challenges me to answer our annual question “Are we gonna run the LA marathon this year or what?” I thought I was doing pretty good there for a while, keeping his tauntings at bay for the past 3 years. But for some ODD reason (my guard must have been down-I’m blaming it on Mad Cow disease or the West Nile virus) and I said, “You’re on old man!” Of course that decision came at about 5 pm Friday night – 2 days before the marathon. But are you really all that surprised?
I must have known somewhere in the back of my mind that I would eventually try something as crazy as running a marathon again, so I TRULY had all intentions of ‘training REALLY HARD this year!” But around 3 WEEKS ago that idea was quickly shot down by a very good friend of mine who proceeded to remind me that my stories are usually funnier when I don’t train. ‘What’s another 3 weeks,’ I thought.
Bibliography: 1) Webster’s New World Dictionary: Re-tard n. Rocky Sanchez and Al Cortez 2) Napoleon Dynamite (one of my all time favorite movies): some dialogue like, “Yeeeesssss!”, “Gross”, “Idiot!” or “Dang!”
So with that in mind, and back by popular demand, here goes Rocky’s 2005 Marathon Play by Play: Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for any grammatical/spelling errors and any graphic bodily function descriptions. Again, for those faint at heart, you can skip to the end!
Also bare with me. The highlights start on Sat. this year, making this for A VERY LONG EMAIL. I promise to make it as entertaining as I possibly can! I also don’t mean to purposely offend anyone. This is all in fun! ENJOY!
SATURDAY (day before the marathon)11:00am: I remember thinking, “Man my mouf tastes/feels extra dry. Maybe I should think about drinking some WATER today. I AM running a marathon tomorrow for peets sake. Duh!
11:05 am: A diet coke sounds better. I buy an EXTRA large cup at a Stop & Go mini mart on my way up to LA from SD. Of course, ignoring the litttle voice in my head telling me that caffeine is a diuretic and will only make me MORE dry!
2:30 pm: Get to my cousin Al’s house. Ask him, “Ready to go to the LA Expo and get this over with?” (I wasn’t kidding when I said we decided to run this on Friday night and signed up for it on Satuday afternoon.
3:30 pm: Finally make it into the LA Expo thinking, “Man, there’s no way out of this now. Time to throw away $85 buckeroos on the registration fee. I could have saved $15 bucks had a signed up before Dec 31st. This is usually when REAL RUNNERS decide to sign up. MONTHS after they’ve already been training! (sigh)
3:45 pm: Standing in a fricken long line for a stupid little bag of nuts being given away by one of the exhibitors. As I stand there, I watch this really ROCK HARD couple walk right by me and remember thinking, “I wonder if they trained?” I just shrugged my shoulders and said to self, “HA! I didn’t, and I’m still running it.” (Now I’m shaking my head)
3:59 pm: Remember telling my cousin, “When are we going? I’m hungry! Don’t forget…we have to Carbo load!!!” Like my body doesn’t already know what that concept is! When asked, ‘Are you going to carbo load tonight?’ I’m like, ‘Tonight?’ How about everynight! After all, I am a runner!
4:00 pm: Can’t decide on an Italian Restaurant. My cousin didn’t want The Olive Garden – AGAIN, so we decide to go to this really awesome Peruvian Restaurant in Gardena called Pollo Inka.
7:30 pm: The time we FINALLY get to the restaurant…had other errands to ‘run’-haha ‘run’, get it? anyway…
7:35 pm: Shoving rice and a fried meat/veggie/french fry dish down my throat. What more can a Carb Lover ask for? Rice and french fries on the same dish?!! Yeeeeesssssssss!
8:00 pm: Ay ya yay! Starting to feel a little gassy with a touch of gastro-esophageal-reflux disease. What did I do!?!?!?!? I KNEW we were eating too late! “IDIOT!”
8:30 pm: Go home, drank some mylanta, went potty, and was confronted with this dilemma: Do I go to bed NOW with a fools, oops I meant full stomach and suffer the consequence of having gas and heart burn ALL Night LONG!? or do I go to bed much later and WAIT until all my food goes down, risking sleeping through my alarm clock and miss the race?!
8:41 pm: “Food Coma” prevails.
SUNDAY12:38 am: Bing! I wake up thinking I missed the alarm clock! Look at the time thinking, “DANG!”
3:34 am: Are we there yet? DANG! Again? I still 2 hours left. Waking up so many times is gonna truly affect my performance and exhaust me! If I only had a full nights rest. (burp)(sigh)
5:30 am: BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP …oh crap, I better get up!
6:00 am: Driving to my cousin’s thinking, “I am TOTALLY and UTTERLY scared out of my running pants!”
6:24 am: Get to my cousin’s saying, “Let’s get going! I wanna go get a VENTI Starbucks Coffee so that I can have one last jolt of energy through my system-at least to help get me thru mile 3! Besides, I want to get in my AM bowel movement in before the big race. Don’t want any poopoo accidents while running! Peepee’s ok.
6:50 am: Ok…let’s get going now! Doesn’t the race start at 7:45??????!!!!!!!!!
7:00 am: Get on the 110 Fwy…going SOUTH!!! Wait, isn’t LA about 20 minutes NORTH of here on the 110?
7:09 am: Go pick up my cousin’s fiance’s friend in SAN PEDRO!!!! who’s gonna volunteer with her at the finish line!!!! YIKES!!!! We’re gonna be late and NOW i can’t get my Starbucks!!!!!
7:30 am: Stuck in DOWNTOWN L.A. grid-locked Marathon traffic. Watching other desperate late runners jump out of their nearly parked cars, running up the sides of the freeway, jumping over freeway fences, just to make sure they get to the starting line-up on time.
7:35 am: Contemplating doing the same thing if we don’t make the 3rd street exit in about 2 min.
7:37 am: Make it out of the grid lock and rush towards the parking structure. By this time, I am SO NERVOUS, who needs a Venti coffee??? Just get me to a bathroom REAL fast!!!!!
7:45 am: Get to the back of a REALLY LONG porta-potty line thinking, “We’re gonna miss the start of the race!!!!
7:45 am: “POW!” I hear the Gun-Start go off for someone. Either the wheelchair racers, bicyclists, or the REALLY ELITE WOMEN MARATHONER’s! I’m not really sure.
7:45:01 am: Ask the guy in front of me in the porta-potty line (since my cousin doesn’t know) what time the race actually starts. He said, “For the really good runners, now. For the slow runner’s like me at the end of the line, around 8:30!”
7:46 am: Whew!!!!! I still have about 45 minutes to get through this line, poop, pee, say a few hail Mary’s, and back out if I really want to!
8:15 am: FINALLY get my chance to go potty!!!!! Dang, that was the longest wait ever. By the time I got there, you can only imagine what the porta potty smelled like. So I didn’t care! I TOO left my mark!
8:15 am: Run Begins for eveyone else who considers themselves a runner, but who isn’t competing for the $50,000.00 cash prize and car. Why are we all doing it then anyways!!!! Dumb, Dumb, Dumb!
8:23 am: Working my way to the starting line (feeling like in the midst of a cattle call), getting pumped up by Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” (the marathon’s official theme song), waving at camera’s left and right so that my stupidy can somehow be recorded incase I drop dead or something.
8:25 am: CROSS the Start Line, turning on my faithful buddy – my iPod’s marathon playlist – and remember thinking: HERE I GO!!!!!
8:26 am: “Walk this way” by Aerosmith gets the party started in the little ‘runner’s world’ that is going on in my head.
8:28 am: Lose sight of my other half: Cousin Al. Boy that was fast!
8:45 am: Remember thinking, “Dang it’s hot out here!” We’ve been getting more rain then Seattle and NOW on race day, the sun decides to give off the most heat it’s given us all winter?! GREAT!”
Miles 1-3: Not bad. I can do this. Ha! what was I worried about? Oh, wait! I see a water/gator aid stand. My mouf is feeling kinda dry. I think I need some water.
Mile 2: Marvel at the different body types (including my own) who come out here and run 26.2 miles. Looks can and ARE very deceiving!
Miles 4-6: Ok, reality hits. It sure is hot out here! Hey wait, is that a pack of little kids running right past me?!?!?! Why I oughta…..Shoot! They pass me up! I’ll show them!
Mile 5: Amazed at LA’s ghetto communities near USC and how supportive they are of us runners! Only time you’ll ever see me run through here: In broad daylight in the midst of 25,000 other runners!
Mile 6.5: Finally! Another water/gator aid stand! Boy, I’m really thirsty! I drink another 1/2 cup of each. But wait! I better be careful. Don’t want to peepee in my pants again this year!
Mile 7: A guy running barefoot passes me. What does he think he’s doing? It’s not like they’re taking auditions for Survivor or the Amazing Race. Ok….this guy is more stupid then me. All I could think was, “I wonder what the bottom of his feet look like….GROSS!”
Mile 8: Notice a lot of runners having “In Memory Of…..” t-shirts this year. Then thought I could have had one made saying, “In Memory of……………………………………….my once normally functioning lower extremities.”
Mile 9: If i were looking at myself running, i would probably look like Napoleon Dynamite. “Idiot!”
Mile 10: Another water/gator aid stand. Better get more liquid. I haven’t REALLY had that much water this entire past WEEK.
Mile 10.5: See I sign saying, “GO! ROCKY” I say, hey! Do I know them? That’s me! Then they say, “No, not you!” =-(
Mile 12: Ok….I’m getting hungry now. All I had for breakfast this morning is a miniature Cliff Bar that I found in my Expo goodie bag that looks like a piece of cow dung. Nasty!
Mile 13: See a Jack In the Box along the running route, thinking, “Ok…i’ve got about a buck fifty in my fanny pack, what can i buy if I ran in real quick?
Mile 13.1: YEAH!!!! I made the 1/2 marathon mark virtually unscathed. Other then the fact that my mouf continues to feel very dry, I’m doing pretty good!
Mile 13.5: Listening to the musical stylings of Motley Crue: “Kickstart My Heart”. That’s exactly what I’m needing right about now!!! I nice kick in the ‘you know what’ wouldn’t be a bad either!
Mile 14: Ok, I think I spoke too soon! CRAMP! CRAMP! ALERT! ALERT! ABORT! ABORT! Have to pull over to the side and watch all these people who I made fun of earlier as I passed them, now pass me by!!!! UUUGH!!! Spend a few minutes stretching out my Right quad.
Mile 15: ANOTHER water/gator aid stand. This time WITH the drink, I’ll take an 800 mg Motrin I brought with me!? See? I’m smart!
Mile 15.2: Think, wait! I just took an 800mg Motrin on an empty stomach??!?!!! What was I thinking???!?!! I need food fast!
Mile 16: FINALLY see a food/fruit station coming up in the distance!!!!!! YEESSSSSSS!!! I thought. Something, substance, anything!!!!!
Mile 16.2: YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bananas???????!!!!!!!! That’s it????? I’ve been at this for 3 1/2 hours and all you’re gonna offer me is some stupid banana slices?????? Did anyone ever tell you I’m HIGHLY allergic to bananas!!!!??????? Idiots!
Mile 17: Get under a spectator’s water hose, it’s so dang hot outside!!!!! Oh no…an unintentional wet t-shirt.
Mile 17.5: Run by L.A.’s gigantasorous AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church as their getting out! Man not only is there new building HUGE!!! so are some of those hats!
Mile 18: . Thought I saw a 95 (or so he seemed) year old man who’s got kyphosis (hunch back) soooooo bad it looked like he was touching his toes as he ran right pass me!
Mile 18.1: Realized I WASN’T hallucinating and DID see a 95 year old man named ERWIN (as per the back of his t-shirt) pass me by!!!!!!! Figured his severe kyphosis made him more aerodynamic.
Mile 19: Yet another water/gator aid stand. Ordered my usual 2 cup minimum and thought: “Hey, something’s wrong. I don’t feel like i have to pee!” At least this year, they haven’t run out of the gator aid for us, lowly, pion, wanna be runner/jogger/shuffler/walker types.
Mile 19:5 A hill (more like MOUNTAIN)????? Are you kidding me???????? You’re gonna make me run up-hill after running 19 miles? Why didn’t you put it at the beginning of the race! JERKS! I thought this i was a flat/downhill course!!! I want my money back!!!!!
Mile 20: AAAAHHHHH! Another HYDRATION STATION! Time for my liquid fill. Still no urge to pee!
Mile 20.1: Little punk kid splashes a cup of water on my back and wets my iPod!!!!! I turn around and give him THE LOOK OF HELL! He scours away. Punk.
Mile 20.3: Is that yet another fruit stand???? AH!!! Oranges this time! YYYESSSSSS! Have about 3 slices thinking, “Gosh i hope the acid from the oranges doesn’t over stimulate my now over active gastric juices mixed in with the 800 mg of Motrin. Well, yet another risk a highly skilled marathoner must take!
Mile 20.5: Now running though LA’s affluent Beverly Hills community. Ok, see Skip, Chip, Katy, Jen, and Lauren having a little cheese and wine party (laughing and smiling) out on their front lawn watching us poor wretched runners go by. Look,….if you’re not gonna share, take your stinkin’ picnic indoors, and don’t come out until your done!!!! Sheesh! How rude!
Mile 21: OOOOOOOOWWWWW! I think i have a blister on the undersurface of my left pinky toe!!!! It hurts! I’ve been out here for 5 1/2 hours and I’m almost done. it really hurts to run! what am I gonna do?
Mile 21: Begin to run/walk as though I have a peg leg or something. I have to keep up some sort of pace or else I’ll NEVER finish!
Mile 21.5: “Bugler’s Fanfare – The Olympic Fanfare & Theme” miraculously comes on next on my iPod!!!!! Gives me the inspiration to go on and not give up!!!! Brings a tear to my eye.
Mile 21.8: “The Rocky” Theme song is next. Man, Someone upstairs is definitely watching over me!!!! I can do this!
Mile 22: Hear an authentic “YOU CAN DO IT” (in the most perfect Rob Schneider intonation) coming from the sidelines bringing a nice laugh to this otherwise broken down body!
Mile 22.5: Pass by a road side bandstand STILL playing for us “elite athletes.” Last time, all the bands pretty much packed up around 10:30 am when all the REAL runners finished. These guys didn’t. That was nice. I think they were called “Los Panchos Trios” or something like that. Right out of our own Echo Park area…give it up for da boyz. Lots of people out there in the street salsa-ing.
Mile 22.9: Oh crap, get gas build up and need to fart….badly! Can’t cuz i have runners/walkers all around me. Move over to the farthest side of the road and try to let a little gas pass….sqeak…….but nothing really comes out.
Mile 23: See a Bagel station! Ah Food…..wait, no cream cheese or lox??!!!!! What are you thinking. Do you WANT me to choke and die on a piece of DRY bagel. No thanks!
Mile 23: Still gimping my way to the finish line, having to stop once in a while to try and stretch out my otherwise oxygen deprived muscles.
Mile 23.7: Yet another water station, and would you believe it???? They STILL have GATOR AID!!!! My mouth is salivating! And still NO signs of pee anywhere!
Mile 24: Almost shot a lady (I would of had I had a gun) who yelled out, “almost there! keep going sweetie! You can do it” Maybe on a map or if I were in a car, I’m almost there, but Dude! I have like 2.2 miles to go. At the rate I’m going, that’s like another 50 minutes!!!!! uuuggh!
Mile 24.8: My iPod says, “Screw You!” I know I told you I’ll play for up to 10 hours when I’m fully charged….But you’re stupid! I’m gonna stop now….6 hours into this entire ordeal. Get yourself a Mini iPod or an iPod shuffle next time! I’ll show you!”
Mile 24.8: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I NEED my iPod. I haven’t heard Jamaroquoi’s “Canned Heat” or “Eye of The Tiger” yet! you can’t do this to me! I’m writing Apple!!!!!!
Mile 25: See ERWIN pass me by and say, NO WAY! To heck with that!!! Say a little prayer and get my miraculous 2nd wind (both figuratively and literally)!
Mile 25.4: Pass this huge Japanese road side musical ensemble playing large and loud drums keeping a very rhythmical beat that helps my staggering running pace…not to mention a nice load sound that muffles and camouflages my bodily gas-a-phone.AAAhhh!
Mile 25.4 – 26.2: Push my limits to WAY over the edge, knowing I’ll soon be finished. Ready to collect my medal. My legs, arms, back, aching like I just ran a marathon or something. Wait, I DID just run a marathon!
Mile 26.2: Cross the finish line 6 hours 48 minutes after starting the race. 6 minutes after 2002’s time. Not bad for someone who’s now 3 years older! Maybe it was the 25 pound weight loss I had this year. I dunno, All i know is that I finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What are you gonna do now that you’ve finished the Marathon Rocky Sanchez?
I’m gonna go to HomeTown Buffet! now step aside! I still DIDN’T pee until after i had had 2 large waters and a coke at Hometown buffet. My kidneys are now officially on strike for brutal and unfair treatment/punishment. Negotiations are in the works.
Thanks for reading!
Till next time,
Rocky
Rocky can be reached at rockyspac@cox.net.